Calamity Physics
by simplytoopretty
Summary: AU. What if senior year had ended differently? What if Clark and Lana never made up? What if the second meteor shower hadn’t occurred? What if Clark had chosen the University of Miami? Eventually Chlark.
1. Part I

CALAMITY PHYSICS

Summary: AU. What if senior year had ended differently? What if Clark and Lana had never made up? What if the second meteor shower hadn't occurred? What if Clark had chosen the University of Miami? Eventually Chlark.

Rating: T

Disclaimer: I don't own Smallville/Superman characters, nor do I own the U. of M.

* * *

Part I 

* * *

Clark kept his eyes trained on his sociology textbook as Jack and Sara came through the door. The couple was giggling about something, Jack's laughter deep and rich, a stark contrast to Sara's high-pitched giggles.

"Oh, hey Clark," Jack greeted flatly. He didn't sound mad, just unsurprised, as if he had wanted something but wasn't shocked that reality didn't match expectation.

Clark sat propped up against the headboard of his twin bed, one of two beds in the small dorm room. A pillow cushioned his back. His textbook rested against his bent legs. He waved a hand absently, his other hand gripping a bright yellow highlighter. He was half-way down a page, scattered words highlighted in brilliant yellow. .

"I thought you were going to go to the library," Jack added, his wish vocalized. Jack may have been unsurprised to find Clark in their dorm room, but he wasn't about to hide what he had wanted. Honesty was part of Jack's charm.

Clark lifted his eyes from his book. "I thought you guys were going to be at Sara's," he retorted, trying to keep his voice neutral and non-accusatory. He wasn't mad at Jack's comment, only vague annoyance tugging at him.

Jack was a decent roommate. Jack could be a bit of a slob, but the mess stayed on Jack's side of the room. He was polite enough, although occasionally verging on vulgar with the jokes he makes. Usually he was fairly decent and fairly tactful. Jack didn't try to use the dorm room for parties, didn't try to make the room a dorm floor hotspot. He was accommodating of Clark's need to study and respected Clark's privacy. He didn't pry, and Clark appreciated that.

The only slightly annoying part about Jack, besides Jack's sense of humor, was Sara. Clark didn't begrudge Jack a girlfriend. Sara was a sweet girl, annoying laugh aside. Sara's constant perkiness sometimes made Clark want to pull out his hair, but that was rare. Usually he was fine with the always-smiling, always-happy girl.

Thus, Clark didn't mind Jack and Sara dating. They seemed happy and Clark was satisfied enough with his life that he didn't resent that.

It wasn't the dating aspect of Jack and Sara's relationship that annoyed him. It was their desperate need to have 'time alone'. Those were Sara's words. Jack tended to be a bit blunter, taking his cues from teen movies which hold back nothing. Sara was a bit more old-fashioned, a fan of Jane Austen novels and old sitcoms.

There was nothing wrong with Jack and Sara wanting to have sex. Clark just didn't like being kicked out of his and Jack's dorm room so that the couple could get in on. Not that Jack and Sara ever kicked him out. They just made he want to leave.

Lately this hadn't been an issue, but apparently the issue was about to rear its head again.

"We were going to hang out there, but then Sara's new roommate arrived. We figured she'd prefer us to get loss while she unpacked," Jack said, dragging Clark back to the present.

Clark nodded, feeling vaguely disappointed. Sara's original roommate had dropped out in early November, citing homesickness. Since then, Sara had been the sole occupant of the dorm room, which had made Clark's life much, much simpler. Jack and Sara had spent most of their time in Sara's dorm, leaving Clark his and Jack's dorm to himself.

He had liked the solitude. Dorm life wasn't exactly quiet and sedate. It was loud, students coming and going at all hours of the day. But with Jack gone, Clark could tune out of the noise and just focus on his studies.

Plus, it was easier to slip into the room early in the morning after patrol when Jack isn't around. Jack might not pry now, but Clark didn't want to hedge his luck. Eventually Jack would feel compelled to comment—it always happened. People could only let odd occurrences past without comment for so long. Then they feel required to say something.

Once they say something, he has to come up with a plausible lie. And while Clark could lie, he wasn't exactly a fan of lying. He preferred not being put in a situation where he had to lie.

It seemed that the days of Jack spending most of his nights in Sara's dorm were over. The arrival of Sara's new roommate saw to that. Resigned, he closed his textbook. He swung his legs over the side of his bed, glad he got had gotten dressed after his shower instead of spending the morning lounging around in his plaid boxers and white shirt he had slept in last night.

"I'll be at the library," he said. He knew his quick exit would be appreciated by Jack and Sara. As long as the couple didn't routinely force him from the dorm room, he could live with being inconvenienced on occasion.

"Well, have fun," Jack said.

Jack threw himself down on the bed, the bed creaking in protest. Jack's large frame was not exactly meant for pummeling such a small bed. Jack wasn't fat per se, but he did was a bit round in the middle. He was also broad-shouldered and his neck was almost non-existent.

Sara giggled again, the sound still grating to Clark's sensitive ears. She sat down on the edge of Jack's bed. "You know, Clark, maybe you and my roommate could hook up," she suggested sweetly, once the giggles were over. She was hundred percent sincere, as Clark knew from experience.

He groaned silently as he considered Sara's suggestion. The last thing he wanted was for Sara to play matchmaker. Again. She had already set him up on half a dozen dates. He had went on them dutifully, did his duty because Sara was a sweet girl and hard to say no to. But he had no intention to be suckered in again. He had had enough of Sara trying to find him a girlfriend. He wished she would give up the quest. Unfortunately, Sara seemed determined to find him a girl. Even more unfortunate was the fact he had been raised to be polite. He couldn't hand out an outright dismissal. He wasn't Lois, unable to speak like that.

"What's she like?" he asked instead of saying 'no', forcing the words to leave his mouth. There was a slight internal protest, but the words leave nonetheless.

Sara smiled, one of those pleased sort of smiles that have long terrified Clark. He had seen that sort of smile on Chloe and Lois before, and it never ended well.

"Hmm, blonde hair, medium height, green eyes. She's pretty." Sara tilted her head, adding, "She's a transfer from Met U, wherever that is."

"Kansas," Clark supplied absently as he stuffed his sociology textbook and laptop into his backpack. It was an automatic response. It probably wasn't the best thing to say.

"Oh, isn't that where you're from" Sara said causally, a bit too causally. Clark chose to ignore her tone.

Clark nodded. He grabbed two highlighters and two blue ink pens. After a moment's contemplation, he added the novel he was reading. He wanted to be gone for a while. He didn't want to go back and discover one of Sara's scrunches on the doorknob. Sitting outside the door waiting for Jack and Sara to finish was about as much fun as mucking out a horse's stall.

"Maybe you could drop by and say hi, share stories about Kansas, cow-tipping tricks or whatever," Jack suggested jokingly. Jack had this odd fixation with Clark being from Kansas. He made, on average, one farm boy joke per day.

Clark didn't appreciate the jokes, although he supposed he's partially at fault. He could have told Jack he was from Metropolis. He didn't have to say he was from rural Kansas, from a small town named Smallville. He didn't have to say his parents were farmers. If he hadn't said nothing, he could have avoided the stupid farm jokes.

He had learned his lesson. He was careful about oversharing these days. If someone asked where he's from, he just said, "Kansas" and left it at that. No one ever asked for more information.

The zipper of the backpack made a soft sound as Clark zipped the bag shut. He turned towards Jack's bed, discovering that Sara had moved so that she and Jack were resting against the headboard of Jack's bed. Their bodies were pressed up against one another, the only way they could fit together on a twin mattress. They looked silly, ridiculous clowns sealed together, impossible to know where one ended and the other began. They looked ready to tumble off the bed, their joined bodies nearly too wide for the bed's narrow width.

"What's her name?" Clark asked, directing his question towards Sara. He didn't plan on stopping in right now, but there was a chance he might know the girl. If so, then he might be tempted to stop by at some point in time. At some point in the future, not right now. He wasn't in the mood to socialize.

Sara had to think for a moment. Sara wasn't stupid, but she was horrible at names. "Chloe," she said decisively after a minute. "Chloe something. I think it started with an S."

Clark paused, standing near the door. "Sullivan?"

He glanced over his shoulder. Sara nodded, smiling brightly. "That's it," she confirmed.

"Do you know her?" Jack asked, his attention focused on Sara.

Clark was already through the day by the time Jack uttered his question. He heard it as he shuts the door firmly. Jack and Sara had left the door open a crack. He closed it for them, giving them their privacy.

* * *

The dorm room Sara would be sharing with Chloe was located on the fifth floor of Stanford Hall. Clark's dorm room was on the sixth floor of Stanford Hall, one floor above Chloe's.

He had been to Sara's dorm room a couple of times. Sara had tried to fix him up with her former roommate, a freshman named Mandy. Mandy was gone, but Clark could still remember the room number.

The dry-eraser board stared at Clark when he came to stand in front of the dorm room's door. The board had yet to be updated. Its pink-colored pen declared this to be _Sara's Room_. There were smiley faces in the 'o' letters. Chloe's name had yet to be added.

He knocked.

The person inside yelled, "Come in," and the voice was clearly that of his best friend from Smallville.

He opened the unlocked door—students were always forgetting to lock their dorm doors. In the far right corner of the room, where the bed opposite of Sara's was located, was Chloe. Her back was turned towards him. She was spreading an orange comforter across the twin bed. The orange color clashed with the pink and purple comforter on Sara's bed.

_How does one say hello to a person who has unexpectedly appeared_? Clark wondered this and derived no solution to the question. So he just said the first thing that came to mind.

"You know, it's not really safe to just say 'Come in' to whoever knocks on the door."

Chloe spun around, the orange comforter falling harmlessly to the mattress. She smiled at him, but her smile was nervous, hesitant. It wasn't Chloe's typical smile. "Hey Clark," she greeted brightly, her tone not betraying the same level of nervousness that her smile was.

"Hey."

The three feet separating them felt like a gap the size of the Grand Canyon. He had seen Chloe in Smallville just a few weeks ago. Now it was the Sunday before classes started and she was suddenly in Florida, suddenly a student at the University of Miami. He was startled, not unhappy, but definitely surprised.

Their visit in Smallville had been punctuated by awkward silences. Four months apart and they had no longer known how to click. The easy element of their friendship, regained in their senior year of high school, had been lost. Sporadic and short emails were simply not the same as spending hours each day with someone.

Drifting, Clark knew, was a normal part of growing up. Friends drifted. It happened. He hadn't like how much he and Chloe had drifted in just four months, but it had been expected.

What wasn't expected was Chloe showing up to attend the university he attended. She hadn't said anything. The only thing she had said in regards to schooling was that her classes at Met U had all gone well.

He could feel the tension between them still and he knew Chloe could feel the tension too. He could tell by the way she shifted her weight from one foot to another. It was in the way she bit her lower lip, just slightly.

He wished he had something witty to say, something that would break this awkward silence. He would even take one of Jack's off-color jokes. But there was nothing, his mind blank. He was surprised and unprepared. Unprepared and so he had no fancy words, no funny words, no words at all in fact.

Chloe was the one who broke the silence. "I thought I'd be the one tracking you down, not the other way around," she said uneasily. The bright tone was gone.

"Your roommate is my roommate's girlfriend."

Chloe moved and took a seat on the edge of her bed. Clark remained standing.

"They kicked you out of the room, didn't they?" Chloe said teasingly, but the tension remained in place. She did get points for effort. It was the tension that stole from the words any levity they might have possessed.

Clark shook his head. Jack and Sara would never kick him out. At least they would never say the words of 'get out'. They would just appear and he would remove himself, because he definitely didn't need to witness anything that went on between Jack and Sara. "Not exactly," he said. "I left voluntarily."

Chloe smiled and brushed her hair behind her ears, in a gesture he had seen on too many occasions to count. At Christmas, her hair had been straight and below her shoulders. Now it was shoulder-length and fell in soft waves. It was far more attractive. It gave her a relaxed appearance, despite the stiff position she had adopted, sitting on the bed, orange comforter rumpled around her. Back too straight, an attempt to give the illusion of being at ease when one was clearly ill-at-ease.

"I'm guessing they'll miss having this room to themselves," Chloe said lightly.

Her attempt fell a bit flat, again, but Clark appreciated Chloe's ability to struggle through the sea of awkwardness between them. "Yeah, I'm sure they will."

"You too, I bet," she added. She said this with a wide smile, another attempt to ease the tension between them.

Clark thought it might be better if she didn't try, at least not so hard. He didn't say this. Instead, he replied, "Maybe a little." He inhaled, exhaled; thinking about his words, and then let them go, just as Chloe began to look worried. "But I'm glad to see you."

The smile that tugged at Chloe's lips was still cautious, but far more genuine and confident than any of the smiles she had given him so far. "Really?" she asked, standing again. She took five steps forward, which put her close enough to Clark that he could smell the vanilla lotion on her skin.

"Yeah, it's nice to see a familiar face."

It wasn't a lie, thankfully. He had made friends, but those friends weren't members of the student population of U. of M. Friends, yes, but not fellow students, at least not anymore.

The only one of his friends who was a student at U. of M. decided to take a leave of absence this semester. Having Chloe here will give him a friend on campus. As well, Chloe's presence might just give Clark a viable excuse to escape Sara's latest matchmaking schemes.

Part of the current tension between him and Chloe had been created by physical distance. With them both attending the same school, they should be able to grow closer and the tension should become prominent. They should be able to recapture the easy friendship they had during their last year of high school. It was the sort of easy friendship they had had in junior high and during the early part of freshman year at high school. They managed to overcome Lana and Lionel in the past. They should be able to overcome four months apart. They had before.

He was hopeful.

Clark suspected a small part the tension between them would always remain. As long as he continued to keep the truth from Chloe, there would be tension. Chloe knew there was a secret and knew that Clark refused to divulge the secret. Tension was inevitable in this sort of situation.

They had managed to find a way to due with her not knowing but suspecting something during senior year. Tension and awkwardness had sometimes sprung up during that year, but nothing seemed to derail this friendship to any great extent. After Lionel had stolen his body, Chloe had refused to speak to him. But even that had ended rather quickly and their friendship had returned to what it had been before the Lionel-incident.

Clark doubted there would be another case of body-snatching. Even if there was, he could probably just tell Chloe the truth about that and she would believe him. Strange things were easy to accept after spending time in Smallville.

"I'm glad I can be that familiar face," Chloe said. Her smile had grown a bit wider, a bit more relaxed. She looked like she did back in freshman year, back when they were young and carefree. So much had changed since then, but her smile gave Clark a measure of relief. Not everything had changed.

Things do change, but some things remain constant. Chloe had been a constant presence in his life. They've been closer and farther apart, emotionally, but she had been a part of his life for years. He knew a lot about her, from random facts to the exact way her face looked when she was happy. Her smile was familiar and comforting.

It reminded him of home.

The space between them no longer felt like a huge gap. The gap was shrinking, the space no longer filled with the same level of awkward tension.

"It'll be like old times," Clark said.

"Well, not exactly like old times," Chloe pointed out. "But we can, you know, seek refuge in whoever's dorm Jack and Sara aren't using," Chloe said, but then her smile faltered. "That is, if you aren't busy with other friends. Or a girlfriend, although you didn't mention one-"

Clark closed the distance between them, placing his hands upon her shoulders. The gesture stopped her rambling. Chloe tilted her head upwards, and he smiled at her. She returned the smile.

There was no longer a space of awkwardness between them. There was still a space and it did feel full, but it didn't feel awkward. It felt oddly good, like a tingling sensation going down his spine. A good feeling but slightly odd, a feeling he isn't used to.

"That sounds fine, Chloe. It sounds nice, actually. I've been lonely."

He had been lonely. He had been alone for the most part. Solitary confinement had fallen upon him without his permission. He didn't have a huge circle of friends. The friends he had made since arriving in Florida were far away and weren't due for a visit any time soon.

"Me too," Chloe admitted softly.

Clark slid his hands from her shoulders down her arms until he reached her hands. He squeezed her hands gently before pulling away, his arms hanging limp at his side.

There was something about revealing loneliness that made a person uncomfortable. It was vulnerability voiced, hard to do when the person was something you had known intimately in the past but didn't know intimately any longer. It was stripping away barriers, the last layers of protections.

Chloe had never been good at admitting vulnerabilities of this sort. Clark had seen her anger, had seen the problems her anger created. She had cried at those times. Other times, when it came to voicing certain emotions, he had seen her pull back, erecting a barrier once more.

Hindsight does bring clarity. He had gone over his memories of his time in Smallville systematically since he had been in Miami. Looking back, he examined events with an eye only time could bring. It had been enlightening, to say the least. He had learned about friends, and his family.

These days he could recognize Chloe's patterns. It had taken years, but now the patterns were familiar and no longer mysterious.

Chloe had already started construction on a new barrier. She took an emotional step backwards, saying, "So, how about giving me a personal tour of the campus?"

He let her back off for now. He wasn't about to push her, not yet. But he had plans to make her smile again, a true smile, not the impostor of a smile on her face currently.

"Let's go," he said. He held out an arm, gentleman-style, with a smile he knew would border on dorky. It was a grin too wide, possessing a hopefulness impossible to turn away from.

Chloe laughed lightly and looped her arm around his. He pulled her to his side. She went willingly enough, soft and warm against his side. Their fingers brushed.

"Lead on, McDuff," Chloe commanded jokingly.

So he led, Chloe just a step behind. It was utterly familiar and completely different than before.

_Things change_, Clark told himself, and left it at that.

For now.

* * *

TBC. 


	2. Part II

See Part I for notes and disclaimers.

Also a special thanks to all those who reviewed, all those who put this story on alert, and all those who just simply read.

* * *

Part II

* * *

The sky was overcast, white-gray clouds hanging low in the sky. It had rained yesterday and it looked like it might rain again today. The clouds were lighter in color today, the gray-black clouds gone, but the sky still had a look of rain, a promise the sky undoubtedly intended to keep.

"We're definitely not in Kansas anymore," Chloe commented idly. They were walking side-by-side, mere inches apart.

"No, we're not," Clark agreed. Miami and Smallville were miles apart literally and metaphorically.

They were currently walking the path that circled Lake Osceola. The lake's water was a bluish-gray color, a shade just a touch bluer than the sky. The path was gravel and was surrounded by green grass on either side. A mixture of vegetation dotted the landscapes, palm trees and other assorted greenery.

Kansas was usually fairly brown by this time of year. The grass would be brown and dead when it wasn't covered by snow. The deciduous trees would be devoid of leaves, while conifer trees would be dark and dull against the sky. There'd be sun, yellow-white but weak, providing barely any warmth.

"Looks like rain," Chloe added, her head turned skyward.

Clark shrugged. "It might. But I wouldn't worry too much about rain. The rainy season is between June and September."

"I don't mind the rain, especially when it's warm like this," Chloe said with a smile. She turned her face back towards him.

"It is warm."

Chloe nodded, taking a sip of the drink she brought at the Starbucks near the library. Hers was a blended coffee drink, loaded with whip cream and caramel. Clark's drink was just plain coffee.

"It's humid too."

Clark laughed at the face she made. "What did you expect?"

"Oh, I don't mind it. It's just…different, I guess." She looked vaguely unsatisfied with her answer, lips fixed in a pout. It wasn't the typically verbose Chloe Sullivan answer. Chloe was usually more articulate than this.

_Maybe the heat was getting to her,_ Clark thought. It had taken him awhile before he had adjusted to the Miami weather. Smallville was hot in the summer, but it was a dry heat. Humid heat was different. Humid air that clung to your skin, making everything seemed hotter than it was.

Chloe suddenly grinned. "It looks like Miami forced you to abandon the flannel plaid," she said happily, as if she had noticed his jeans and navy blue shirt earlier. Maybe his clothing just hadn't registered. Clark wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or not.

However, Chloe's comment constituted yet another wisecrack about his wardrobe—everyone seemed to have an opinion about his clothing. "The weather did play a part."

"But not the only part?"

Clark shook his head. "One sure fire way to stand out in Miami is to wear plaid flannel."

Chloe took another sip of her drink. "I bet." She tilted her head a bit in his direction. "Did someone pick on you because of your clothing?" she asked teasingly.

Clark rolled his eyes at her comment. Bullying went out of style in high school. He added a shake of his own head, because no one had made fun of his clothing.

Correction: none of his classmates had made fun of his clothing. Other people had, but not his classmates.

Chloe swayed a little in his direction, her movements fluid and loose. The knee-length skirt she was wearing flared out just slightly in response. "So, tell me about Jack and Sara."

There was a lot Clark could say in response to that question. He had the option to list the positive and negative qualities the couple possessed individually and as a couple. He decided to start with a warning first, because it would be the nicest favor he could do for Chloe. "Whatever you do, don't tell Jack you're from rural Kansas. He'll have a field day with it."

The expression on Chloe's face froze, as if his reply hadn't been exactly what she was expecting. She recovered quickly, smile back in place. "And why not?" she asked, her curiosity now evident in her tone.

"He has a thing for farm jokes."

"Farm jokes?" she repeated skeptically. One eyebrow was raised. It was an expression Clark had seen too many times to count before, back in Smallville, back in high school. Light years' ago, but similar familiar, achingly familiar.

"Cow-tipping and stuff like that," he said resignedly. He had gotten used to the jokes over the last semester. They just bounced off him now. He didn't like them, but they no longer bothered him like they had in September. Jack was mostly responsible for that. A few select others had also played a part in making him immune to childish jokes about kids from farms.

"Sounds like a winner."

"Jack's a pretty decent guy," Clark said, then added, "If you ignore his humor."

Chloe nodded. "Got it, avoid mentioning farms to Jack." She stirred her drink, the whip cream and the blended drink becoming one. "Here's a big question: How do you think Sara will appreciate my mini Wall of Weird?"

Clark stopped himself from laughing. At one time, Chloe had just called her wall a scrapbook that had mutated. The Wall of Weird had become one of her defining characteristics, an eccentricity of hers. "You have a mini Wall of Weird?"

The grin Chloe favored him with was impish in nature. "Of course." She moved an inch closer. "My roommate at Met U had personal problems with the Wall." She sounded rather proud of this, not disappointed, like it had been fun to annoy her roommate with her newspaper clippings on the weird and unexplained.

"So, do you think she'll mind?"

"Sara's pretty easy-going. She'll probably find it a hoot. Jack will probably ask you why I'm not up your Wall though."

Chloe just shook her head.

"Meet a lot of interesting people?" she then asked, moving the conversation along. They had tired of Jack and Sara, although not a lot had been said.

"So, have you made a lot of new friends?"

"Some," he said. "Most of them through work."

The term 'work', for Clark, had taken on a double-meaning, only Chloe won't know that. She would think he meant a normal job, the kind a college student is expected to have these days.

But Clark could never be normal and while he did have a 'normal' part-time job, he also had another job. It was the job of helping people, of patrolling the streets to prevent people from becoming a victim of crime.

It was through this job that he met the 'friends' he had referred to rather obliquely. It wasn't a large group of people, four of them excluding him, for a total of five when he counted himself in the mix. And he usually counted himself into the mix. He wasn't always present physically, but he was there mentally and he was only a quick call if they needed his help on one of their missions.

Five guys, including himself, all of whom worked in the helping-the-world field. The first person Clark had met was AC. They had both tried to save the same person from drowning. AC had gotten there first. Clark had started swimming first. They had run into each other afterwards, had done a bit of note comparing, and had agreed to keep each other's secrets.

Through A.C., Clark had met Oliver and Victor. Victor was a man-turned-machine who Oliver had rescued from the lab. The lab had been responsible for conducting the experiments which had resulted in Victor's unique condition. Oliver was, well, Oliver was just a human who was incredibly gifted at archery.

The last person of their little superhero gang was a kid named Bart. Clark had met Bart back in Smallville. He had been only mildly surprised to find Bart with Oliver. After all, Bart had said he was going to look for other individuals with special abilities. Although, according to Oliver, Bart hadn't 'found' anymore. Instead, Oliver had found Bart and Bart had been the first to join forces with Oliver.

Now they were a little group of justice fighters. The headquarters was in Metropolis, where Oliver currently resided. Bart came and went, but stayed primarily in Metropolis at headquarters. So did Victor. AC was a student at the U. of M., but on leave right now. Clark still saw AC sporadically on the campus.

AC would probably be the only person he'd introduce Chloe to, but that was okay with Clark. Bart, Oliver and Victor would raise too many questions, and Clark intended to avoid that. Chloe wasn't the sort of person Clark needed to ask a lot of questions.

"Clark?" Chloe said, and Clark realized she had asked him a question and he hadn't yet responded. He hadn't heard the question.

"Sorry, could you repeat that. I must have zoned."

"No problem." She didn't look suspicious or anything, which was a good sign in Clark's books. "I just asked where you worked," she said.

"Oh, I'm a weekend campus security guard."

"Really?" Chloe asked, her tone full of slight wonder.

"Yeah, Sheriff Adams gave me the reference that landed me the show. The hours are reasonable and it pays a bit more than minimum wage. It's better than working in the cafeteria, that's for sure."

The security guard job hadn't been high on Clark's list of things to do, but it did give him a little extra cash and granted him a bit of legitimacy when patrolling the streets on the weekends.

Chloe smirked, apparently amused by the revelation. "Clark Kent in law enforcement. Who would have thought?"

He didn't take offense. The same thought had once gone through his mind. His attitude had changed since he had come to Miami.

"I like it. I'm even thinking about doing a minor in Criminology." He had wanted to do a major-minor combo, and Criminology had seemed to fit.

"What's your major?" She doesn't make any snide comment about Criminology as a minor. He was thankful. Lois had once mocked him, saying he'd major in farming and minor in criminal justice.

Clark hid his grin. He had debated his major for a while, but had finally decided over the winter break. "Journalism," he confessed.

He felt oddly embarrassed at admitting this, for some reason. Chloe was the first one he's told, other than Jack and Sara. Chloe was the first one who knew him when he wrote for the Torch, when journalism was one of the things he did because Chloe had demanded he do it.

Journalism had grown on him. He had taken the first-year communication courses and he had even written a few articles for the U. of M. newspaper. He had liked the course and writing the articles. He even seemed to have a bit of a aptitude for journalism, or some a professor had said during an office hour.

His embarrassment, his shyness at admitting his major, could possibly be attributed to the fact that it was Chloe he was telling this fact to. Chloe had always been the one destined for journalism. She had wanted to be an investigative journalist since she had started elementary school. It was her dream and he did worry he had adopted her dream because she had always been so passionate about journalism. It was hard not to love something when the person who introduced it to you was so enthusiastic about it.

"That's wonderful, Clark," Chloe exclaimed.

She stopped them in the middle of the path and, heedless of the others around, threw her arms around him. His response was belated by the time it took him to process the impromptu hugging. After two seconds of processing time, he wrapped his arms loosely around her waist.

There was still a sliver of space separating their bodies. Clark was thankful for that distance. It prevented the hug from being overwhelming. It felt just right.

"I'm glad you approve," he said, arms full of Chloe.

"Did you think I wouldn't?" she asked, pulling back. He let her go, arms dropping back to his sides.

Clark shrugged and said, "No, not really."

Chloe had seem to be a bit obsessed with making him into a journalist back in high school, but Clark was never sure if that was because Chloe thought journalism was a good fit for him or because it was something she shared with him that he didn't share with Lana. It might be a combination of both.

"I approve of a lot of things that you do," Chloe told him softly.

Clark nodded, not quite sure what to say to that. He thought maybe the correct response was to say nothing at all. So he just nodded and smiled and tried not to think that there was a hidden message in Chloe's words.

They walked for a while in silence after that. The silence wasn't as awkward as it had been in Chloe's dorm room, but it wasn't exactly comfortable silence either. They had drifted apart. Comfortable silence was one of the things that would take time to regain.

Finally Clark decided to ask the question he had been mulling over since he had heard Chloe was Sara's roommate. He decided to just say it bluntly, because he doubted there was a tactful and easy way to ask his question.

"Why didn't you tell me you were going to be attending U. of M. when we saw each other over Christmas?"

Chloe's eyes were downcast for a minute, her face set in an expression Clark wasn't familiar with. She continued to walk and Clark kept pace, waiting for her to respond. He didn't push, wouldn't push, at least not yet.

She lifted her head finally and smiled sheepishly at him. "I didn't tell anyone," Chloe admitted. "I told my dad the day before I left to drive from Smallville to Miami."

The thing Clark didn't understand was the secrecy of it all. He knew she hadn't told him, but apparently she hadn't told anymore. He hadn't been expected that. Later he would wonder why he thought she would have told the other people in her life.

"I bet your dad was stunned."

"He didn't think it was a good idea," Chloe confessed. She wasn't looking at him now. She was playing with the green straw of her drink, stirring it compulsively.

"But you came anyways."

They had come to a stop, standing off to the side of the path. Students passed them without giving them a second glance.

Chloe shrugged. "It's my life. Besides, everything was in place. It was too late to change anything."

The pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place.

"You didn't want to tell anyone until it was too late for them to change your mind, am I right?" he asked hesitantly. He was fairly confident he was right.

Chloe's answer confirmed his suspicions. "I wanted it to be my decision, my decision alone."

_She sounded almost childlike_, Clark thought. Childlike and small. Scared too, as if she was questioning her judgement still. He wasn't going to comment on her decision, wasn't going to voice an opinion one way or another. It was her decision after all.

Just like it had been his decision to attend U. of M. Everyone made decisions and sometimes you didn't understand the decision a person had made. But that didn't give anyone a right to question that judgement.

Chloe hadn't questioned him when he had announced his attention to attend the University of Miami. She had just accepted his decision and he was going to do that.

"Are you hungry? I could go for some fries."

Chloe stared at him before nodding slowly. Clark smiled broadly, feeling his cheek muscles stretch, but it was a good stretch. He held out his arm again, repeating the gesture from earlier in the dorm room. Chloe smiled and looped her arm around his.

They rejoined the people on the path and life started up again.

* * *

TBC. 

Comments always appreciated.


	3. Part III

See Part I for disclaimer.

Again, I'd just like to thank all those who read and all those who reviewed. Also, it's a day later than I planned. I'm trying to post every Saturday. Hopefully that won't happen next week.

* * *

Part III

* * *

"Did you talk to Lana when you were in Smallville?" 

Clark opened his eyes. He lay stretched out on Chloe's bed, head facing the end of the bed. His head was nearly over the edge, his tall frame not meant for the dorm-sized beds. His eyes had been closed as he listened to Chloe finish unpacking her stuff. He hadn't been sleeping, just resting his eyes, not that his eyes had been tired. It had just felt nice to lay stretched out on the soft cotton comforter, eyes closed as Chloe puttered around the room.

His view of the dorm room was upside down. He could see Chloe seated at the desk on her side of the room, a bulletin board hung and several articles already tacked on it. Chloe's laptop lay on the pine wood desk, closed. It was yellow and black, reminding Clark vaguely of a bee.

Bees weren't his favorite bug. Ever since freshman year, Clark had preferred to avoid bees. Bees stings didn't hurt him, but he knew how deadly bee stings could be for his friends. It was better if bees were just avoided all together.

"Clark?" Chloe said.

His eyes fluttered shut and then opened again as he said, "No, I didn't."

He hadn't run into Lana during the short time he had been in Smallville. It hadn't been intentional. He had even gone to the Talon, Lana's usual haunt, but he had glimpsed neither hind nor hair of his former girlfriend. Clark hadn't felt disappointed by that.

When he arrived in Miami, thinking about Lana had hurt, physically and emotionally. Not anymore. He could look at Lana's picture or think about her without his heart breaking. He could think of her fondly, with the feelings one had for that lost first love. Lana was the first girl he had ever loved, but she was his past and all he felt now was friendship towards the person he had lived a mile from for years.

"I didn't even see Lana around town," Clark added when Chloe didn't say anything. His thoughts were pressing down on him and talking helped keep him grounded, prevent him from slipping more fully into his musings.

"You weren't in town for long," Chloe said quietly. She was stuffing notebooks and other school supplies into the desk's drawers. Clark couldn't help but feel that Chloe was purposefully not looking at him, Clark feels.

The topic of Lana had to arise at some point. It was inevitable. Lana had always been one of the uncomfortable things between him and Chloe. His secrets and his feelings for Lana had built walls between him and Chloe.

Clark had never been clear on just how Chloe felt about Lana. Chloe and Lana had lived together in the same house for two years. They had lived liked sisters and they had been friends. They hadn't been best friends like him and Chloe, but they had been friends nevertheless.

But there was a second element to Chloe and Lana's friendship, and it had been that clear which had complicated Chloe and Lana's friendship. It was this element that had made Clark unsure how Chloe truly felt about Lana. And the element? Well, the element was him. Chloe had made it clear her feelings towards him weren't just friendship-oriented and it had been clear that his feelings towards Lana hadn't been friendship-oriented either. Lana had made it clear as well that she had romantic feelings for him.

Photographic memory could be both a blessing and a curse. Clark could remember vividly the tension between Chloe and Lana during sophomore year, as they both competed for his affection. It had never been an openly-acknowledged competition, but it had existed and Lana and Chloe had been rivals in this competition. He had tried to be friends with both of them, but his feelings for Lana kept getting in the way. They had started dating, and that had led to Chloe making a deal with Lionel Luthor. Clark had long since forgiven Chloe for that transgression, and Chloe had forgiven him for many things as well. But it had happened and it was a reminder, as always, of what happened in love triangles.

Friendship and rivalry all rolled into one package. Those two facts made it difficult to determine how Chloe felt about Lana. Sometimes Chloe was Lana's defender, other times Chloe seemed to harbor a not-so-hidden annoyance towards Lana. Not hatred, definitely annoyance though.

Last he had check, however, Chloe and Lana had been in the on-stage of their friendship. "I would've thought you'd already know that," Clark ventured tentatively. "Aren't you and Lana still in contact?"

He sat up and watched as Chloe shoved several school supplies into her desk. Clark could imagine what was driving Chloe currently to take out her feelings on her school supplies. He can guess that she had been on pins and needles, waiting for him to go off on to a Lana-mope-drabble. He had done that countless times to her in high school.

The thing was he had changed. He wasn't the love-sick boy in love with Lana anymore. But Chloe didn't know that.

"Not really," Chloe offered absently. Her tone might have been a bit too absent, an attempt to feign nonchalance.

The desk chair emitted a soft squeak as Chloe spun the chair around. For the first time since she began this conversation, Chloe was facing him. Her face was a mask he can't read.

"Chloe…" he said, softly, encouraging.

She sighed audibly, the sound loud to his ears. "We haven't spoken in over two months."

Clark was surprised but he kept his surprise to himself. Chloe and Lana might not have had a lot in common, but they had both seemed committed to maintaining their friendship.

"Falling out?"

"Big time," Chloe said. She looked at him closely for a second before she elaborated. "Lana's been in date mode. Suffice to say, I expressed my concern and she didn't appreciate it. Some fairly harsh words were exchanged and neither of us has apologized. Hence the whole not-talking thing."

"Oh," Clark said. He wasn't sure what to say. He didn't know the details and he didn't want to take sides.

"Do you want to apologize?" he asked after a moment. He wasn't sure if it was the right to ask, but he had to ask something. And he was curious.

"I don't know. I said some pretty nasty things, but Lana said worst things."

Clark didn't say anything.

Chloe rose from her desk chair and crossed the short distance to the bed. She sat down, one leg beneath her body. She leaned against the wall and Clark moved to mimic her position.

Once settled, she started speaking again. "She might have implied that I was pathetic with not ever having a boyfriend and playing best friend to the guy I liked, among some other things."

He wasn't sure what 'other things' meant, but he didn't ask for Chloe to expand. He could respect her decision to omit some of the words that had been exchanged between her and Lana.

Clark reached out and placed a hand on her knee. He rubbed gently. "Chloe, you're not pathetic," he said.

Chloe rolled her eyes. "But I am," she said disparagingly. "I'm Felicity."

Felicity was probably a character from a book or a television show. Clark had no clue who the character was, or why Chloe was apparently Felicity. "Felicity?" he questioned.

"TV show about a girl who decides to attend NYU because of a boy."

"I doubt I was the only reason you decided to come here," Clark said softly.

She rested her head against the wall, sighing. "You weren't the only reason. It was a lot of things," she said simply. "But loneliness and missing you did play a part."

"Life after high school: who would have thought it'd be so hard?"

Clark watched as a small, rueful smile appeared on Chloe's face. "Clark Kent the comedian. When did this happen?"

"I guess it just happened."

It probably happened some time between Jack's farm jokes and Bart's jokes about his clothing style. The old-age adage of _if you can beat 'em, join 'em_ had proven true. Comedy did make things simpler on occasion.

Chloe nodded, eyeing him seriously. "Like you just happened to grow out of your love for Lana?"

Lana again and Clark wasn't surprised. To Chloe, he was just suddenly over Lana. For him, it wasn't so sudden, a months-long journey. He tried to capture this in words. "I still love Lana. But I'm not in love with her. She's a part of my past, she'll always be my first love, but I've moved on. People move on."

He feared he wasn't expressing himself well enough. How could he pick just a few words to describe the evolution of his feelings?

Chloe just looked at him skeptically, her face set in an expression he had seen too many times before. It was the face of disbelief. "Not you. You've been in love with Lana since you could tie your shoes."

"I didn't meet Lana until I was five. I tied my shoes at four," Clark said patiently.

"It was an analogy," Chloe exclaimed.

"It was a bad one then."

"Clark…" Chloe whined.

"I'm not in love with Lana, Chloe. Just trust me on this one, okay?"

She regarded silently for a long moment, time stretching. Clark just waiting, sitting Chloe's bed as the sky slowly began to darken outside. Inside, the bright lights of the dorm room chased away any shadows created by the darkening sky.

There were a million things he could have said, he knew. He could have tried to explain to Chloe how Lana hadn't been right for him. He wanted to love someone, but he didn't want love to consume him. His feelings for Lana had too often threatened to consume him whole. He had loved her, but in all the wrong ways, for perhaps all the wrong reasons.

He wanted to have a relationship like that of his parents, one filled with love and trust. As much as he had loved Lana, his instinct had always been to protect her. He had treated her like a porcelain doll. Chloe had once had a porcelain doll. He remembered accidentally breaking it when they were thirteen, from mishandling the fragile doll. He had always been afraid of breaking Lana.

He could have tried to explain those things. He chose not to. He chose instead to let his emotions show on his face. Words were meaningless in some situations, and this was a situation where words couldn't fully capture the truth of the matter.

Finally Chloe nodded. She broke their gaze and cleared her throat lightly. "You know, we haven't talked about Lois at all."

The topic of Lois Lane didn't offer much relief from having to analyze and explain his feelings towards Lana. "I'm perfectly content to remain ignorant about what your insane cousin happens to be up to. Unless she's been arrested again, I don't need to know anything."

"Ignorance is bliss?" she queried, her tone lighter than it had been for awhile.

He shot her a smile. "It is, especially in regards to Lois."

Chloe stood, stretching, apparently restless. Her tank top rose up, revealing an inch of skin. Her arms lowered, and the skin no longer teased him. "Lois is a very nice person. She's not this monster you make her out to be."

Clark disagreed. "She's a fun-sucking, sanity-stealing vampire." He had a laundry list of offenses to which Lois has perpetuated against him.

"That's a bit harsh, even for you," Chloe said lightly.

She walked back over to her desk, a box Clark hadn't noticed off to the far side. She picked it up and put in on the desk. She began to stack several non-fiction novels on top of the desk, names like Norman Mailer and Peter Newman written on the sides of the thick books.

Clark started listing off the hardships he's endured because of Lois, ticking them off one by one on his hand. "She calls me 'Clarkie' when she's annoyed at me and 'Smalliville' whenever she feels like mocking my roots. She spent months at my parent's house, took over my bedroom, ate our food, and belittled me almost daily. Consider me unimpressed with Lois Lane."

Chloe lifted her head and frowned at him.

"Okay, that was a bit harsh," he said, back tracking. "Lois was the older sister I never wanted and she got on my nerves sometimes."

"You have the only-child syndrome," she said with a soft smile.

"You're an only child too," Clark pointed out. He might have been a bit possessive of his parents, but Chloe was in the same boat as him.

"I shared my dad with Lana," Chloe said proudly.

"You complained biweekly when Lana lived with you."

She shrugged. "Sisters do that. It's a love-hate relationship."

"So thus it was normal for me and Lois to hate each other on occasion."

Chloe's smile shifted to a frown. Clark sighed and said, "Tell me what my pseudo-sister is up to."

"She's currently living in the apartment above the Talon and works fulltime at the Talon. And she's considering taking some classes at Central Kansas."

"Well, that's good for her," Clark said, although he could care less about where Lois worked. But he is curious about how Lois felt about Chloe's decision to attend the U. of M. "Did you tell her about moving to Miami?"

"She said she hoped I'd be happy."

"That's it?" Clark would have assumed Lois would have said more. He would have thought she might have yelled _no, don't do that_.

Chloe flattened the empty box. "Lois has been a bit preoccupied lately," she said by way of explanation.

She picked up another full box and opened the flaps. More books appeared.

"Preoccupied?" Clark asked, sure he didn't want to know the answer. But he didn't want to be on the receiving-end of another frown-glare from Chloe.

"With her new boyfriend," Chloe explained. "Lois started seeing him, oh, three months ago. She spends most of her time in downtown Metropolis with him. She's hoping for an invite to move in soon."

Three months wasn't very long. He said that.

"It is for Lois," Chloe insisted. Clark wasn't surprised to see her defending her cousin. Chloe and Lois were close, much closer than Lana and Chloe had ever been. "Plus, Oliver's a great guy," Chloe added. "He really seems to love her, lack of tact and all."

"How did they meet?" Clark asked. He couldn't help himself. Lois finding a boyfriend who could put up with her inability to not say everything that popped into her mind was an amazing feat in and of itself. He felt almost sorry for this Oliver guy.

_Almost_ being the key word.

Chloe grinned at him, her eyes bright. "She backed straight into his BMW. They argued about who was at fault, it was love at first sight," she concluded dramatically. She clasped her hands together, the impression of a lovesick teenager complete.

"His BMV?"

It was a fancy car, but Clark was sure lots of guys with the name Oliver had fancy cars like that. Just because Lois's boyfriend was a guy named Oliver who drives a BMV didn't mean alarm bells should go off in his head.

And yet the bells were beginning to sound.

"It's straight out of a storybook. She's a lowly waitress at a coffee shop in Hickville, Kansas. He's a multibillionaire used to a life in the limelight."

Clark tried to keep his voice level as he said, "He's a multibillionaire?"

He may be slow, as Chloe had accused him of being on numerous occasions, but he could add two and two together and come up with four. There weren't that many multibillionaires in Metropolis who were named Oliver. His Oliver was Lois's Oliver.

There were thousands of single guys Lois's age in Metropolis. Why did Lois have to back up into Oliver's car? Why couldn't she have ruined another guy's car?

It wasn't that Clark cared if Oliver dated Lois. It was just that Lois had this annoying tendency of digging. If Oliver was in love, he could possibly feel compelled to tell Lois about the whole superhero gig, as Oliver liked to call it. And if Lois knew about the gig, she might insist upon coming to headquarters. If she was at headquarters, Clark ran the risk of bumping into Lois. And that would be bad because in all likelihood Lois would run to Chloe and tell Chloe all about Clark having a secret identity, vow of silence forgotten in her need to tell Chloe the truth.

Simply put, Clark didn't trust Lois to keep a secret. He didn't trust her to keep his secret specifically. Since Clark wanted to keep Chloe in the dark about his abilities, having Lois in a position to potentially spill the beans one day in the future was problematic at best, frightening at worst.

Clark told himself to calm down. He was getting ahead of himself. There was a slim chance there were two guys named Oliver who lived currently in Metropolis and were multibillionaires.

"What's Oliver's last name?"

"Queen, Oliver Queen," Chloe said. She turned in his direction and waved a finger at him. "And don't worry—I already did all the necessary checking-out of the guy. So you can put aside the big brother concern."

"I wasn't concerned," Clark retorted. At least not concerned in the way Chloe thought he was concerned. He waited a moment before asking, rhetorically, "Can we talk about something else?"

Chloe shrugged and continued to unpack the box she was working on. "I don't care."

Clark stood and walked over to the desk, leaning against the side. The edge bit into his stomach.

"You wanna finish unpacking later? I'm staved?" It was his way of moving past the topics of Lana and Lois. Getting out of the dorm room seemed like a perfect plan.

Chloe put down the last book from her box. "Sounds like a plan." She flattened the small box and tossed the cardboard down on to the pile near her desk.

"I'm plan-guy," Clark said jokingly.

Chloe smiled but said, "Let's not push it."

Clark crossed his arms. "I'm going to leave and not help you get back."

Chloe moved so that she was next to him. She shoved him in the direction of the door. "Clark, shut up."

"And if I don't?"

She slapped him lightly on the arm. "Just do it."

"Chloe…"

He was at the door. Chloe reached around and grabbed the handle. The door swung off. She pushed him to get him moving again and closed the door firmly behind her.

Clark led the way to the dining hall. Over dinner, they talked about courses. After dinner, they walked back to her dorm room and whiled away the hours finishing unpacking her room. He left when he heard Sara and Jack heading in the direction of the dorm room, agreeing to meet Chloe in the morning to wait in line for her books. He already had his, had already started reading his sociology textbook, but he didn't have a class until one in the afternoon.

Plans made, he left the room just as Sara and Jack arrived. He waved at them and then walked away quickly, leaving Chloe to offer an explanation if she so chose to. She'd kill him later, Clark knew, but he wasn't worried.

After all, it wasn't like Chloe could actually hurt him physically.

* * *

To be continued, in a week. 


	4. Part IV

Author's Note: A slight delay, due to author illness. But here is the latest chapter. Hope you enjoy. And if you do, feel free to say so. I'll send you virtual cookies if you do.

* * *

Part IV

* * *

The first week of classes had passed smoothly. On Monday Clark had gone with Chloe to stand in lineup at the bookstore so that she could buy her books. It had taken a little over an hour, which they spent talking about professors they had had during their first semester. After lunch on Monday, they had parted, going to their separate classes. Around dinnertime they had met up and ate dinner with Jack and Sara.

The remaining days of the week had been spent in similar fashions. They met for breakfast Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. On Thursday, Clark's class started at nine while Chloe's class didn't start until eleven. They had agreed not to meet that morning, Chloe unwilling to get up to eat breakfast before eight in the morning. Most days they met for lunch, except for Wednesday, but since they had the same class that stretched from eleven to one, it wasn't like they weren't together. Except for Thursday night, when he had to work, they ate dinner together each evening.

By Saturday, Clark had gotten a little tired of seeing Chloe. They had two classes together and they had spent most of the past week together. He didn't worry about it too much though. It was early in the semester and Chloe didn't know anyone yet. Once she made some friends, she would probably want to hang out less.

Clark liked hanging out with Chloe. Nine times out of ten he was fine with it. It was just that he wanted some downtime. They were getting better at being comfortable around one another and even their silences weren't so bad anymore.

Still, he had gotten used to be alone the last semester. He hadn't always been alone, granted, but he had never had such a constant companion. It was nice to have someone to talk to during meals and he liked having someone to sit next to in class. He just sometimes wanted to be alone, to be by himself with his thoughts.

Chloe's constant presence also made it difficult to slip away to patrol. He didn't want to patrol in the middle of the night on weekdays, because he did need sleep and because it wasn't always easy to sneak back inside the dorm at four in the morning without waking Jake. With Chloe using around from early evening to at least nine but usually ten, it made patrolling difficult.

They had spent Friday night apart, owing to the shift Clark had had to work. It had been a nice breather. He had done his four hours with the campus patrol and then had wandered off campus and into the city to lend a helping hand to anyone in need. As usual, there had been people in need and he had been able to help. Contributing this way gave him this feeling he figured was akin to the endorphins released after a long run.

Once he had talked to Oliver about this, unsure if this was the right feeling to be getting. Oliver had smiled at him and said, "Everyone gets that feeling when they're in this saving-business, from police officers to fire fighters to superheroes who work under the cloak of darkness."

Returning to the dorms at about two, Clark had been quietly slipped into his dorm room. Jack had been asleep and luckily didn't stir as Clark undressed and climbed into bed.

Saturday morning came and Clark was up and out of the room. He went for a run before heading to the library, spending the afternoon playing on the Internet. It was a Chloe-free day, as Chloe was spending most of the day researching her first article for U. of M.'s student newspaper. Clark had taken her by the small cramped office Thursday afternoon after their classes.

Peyton, the news editor, had been thrilled to gain another news writer, especially one with as much experience as Chloe had. The news section staff was on the small side and composed mostly of students in their first or second years with several third and fourth years thrown into the mix.

Peyton had talked to Chloe for fifteen minutes before giving her assignment for the paper. Like most of the articles for the news section, it was due the following Thursday. The paper went to print on Fridays and was distributed on Mondays. Chloe was getting a head start. Clark, when he contributed articles, tended to leave the writing until Tuesday or Wednesday.

Saturday afternoon was spent relaxing. He did a four hour shift that evening and then headed to the city once his work shift was over. When he arrived at his dorm room at two, the room was empty. Sunday morning, when Clark woke up, Jack was in bed.

Sunday morning Clark spent in the library, doing readings for his classes next week. He read through the texts at a relatively normal pace. He did take the occasional note, but mostly he just read. With his memory, he didn't have to rely on detailed notes to remember what he read. He just remembered. It was a nice quirk, a gift he supposed for being an alien from a faraway planet called Krypton.

He never complained about that aspect of being an alien.

Early Sunday afternoon found him back in his dorm room. Jack was gone. With the room to himself, Clark had the music he liked turned up. He wasn't blasting his music but he was listening to the stuff he liked without headphones, a nice change of pace. Jack couldn't stand the mixture of country and rock Clark liked.

The knock on the door forced Clark off his bed. He had been lying down, hands beneath his head, eyes closed. He had been killing time, bored with his homework done and nothing planned for the afternoon.

He reached the door and pulled it open, not at all surprised to see Chloe at the door. He had been wondering when she would stop by, hoping in fact. He had gotten a bit tired of her, granted, but that had been yesterday and today he had been waiting for her to stop by and save him from an afternoon of boredom.

"Come in," he said, taking a step back from the door.

"I'm not disturbing you, am I?"

Clark shook his head.

Chloe breathed a sigh of relief. "Good," she said. She was dressed in jeans and a dark pink tank top cut low. She was wearing a green jacket but she shrugged it off as she took a seat on his bed.

"Were you napping?" she asked from her spot on the bed. Her hand smoothed out the wrinkles in the comforter.

"Just laying down." He moved to take a seat on Jack's bed. He looked at her, at her hands clasped around her knees. "Sara and Jack kicked you out of your dorm room, didn't they?"

Chloe gave him a small shrug. "Not really."

He rolled his eyes.

"They didn't tell me to leave," she said. "They just hinted that they'd like me to leave. Really, telling and hinting are two distinct, different things, not easily comparable. So they didn't kick me out. They just…"

"They just subtly maneuvered you out of the room," Clark concluded for her.

"Precisely," Chloe said with a smile.

They stared at each other for a moment, sitting on opposite beds. Sun filtered through the partially-open blinds, a reminder of the nice day outside. It was warm and balmy outside, a far cry from the icy temperatures of Smallville in mid-January.

"So, any ideas for something to do this afternoon?" Clark asked.

"I'm pretty flexible."

"How about something in the great outdoors?" Clark suggested.

Chloe made a face. "I'm more of the indoor-type-of-girl, Clark. Outdoor activities and Chloe don't really mesh."

He laughed at her. "I'm not suggesting a hike."

"I know that," Chloe said defensively. "Still you're suggesting something that could potentially involve sweating and I don't like that."

Clark resisted rolling his eyes at her again. "We went for a walk last week."

"No, we went for a tour," Chloe said with a wave of her hand. "That's different. A tour requires walking."

"Not bus tours," Clark pointed out. Not that he had ever been on a bus tour. He did know they existed. His granddad had gone on one last year during a trip to Europe. Clark had seen the pictures his granddad had sent his mother. He was sure walking tours were better than bus tours.

But his granddad was getting up there in the years and probably walking a lot was strenuous. Chloe, however, was young. She was glued to her computer chair, part of a new generation of couch potatoes who spent their time in front on the computer screen and not the television screen.

"I hate exercise," Chloe insisted.

"I promise it will be low-key," Clark said. He pointed towards the window. "It's so sunny and warm outside."

"It's sunny and warm everyday," Chloe retorted dryly.

Clark wasn't deterred. "And because of that we should waste a perfectly fine weather by staying inside?"

Chloe sighed audibly. "Fine, we can go for a walk," she said, acting as if she was making a huge concession.

Clark fought back his smile. "Thank you."

"Can there be coffee?"

He could do coffee and a walk. They could pick up the coffee and then take a walk. They could stay on campus or even go off-campus for both. He could have just given in right there and then, but he couldn't resist the temptation to tease Chloe a bit.

"Have I ever denied you coffee?" Clark asked. He could feel the beginnings of a smile begin to form. It wasn't his fault. Chloe and her passionate love for coffee often made him smile.

And while he might tease her about the coffee, he would never try to change her. Chloe and coffee just went together. It was like peanut butter and jelly. Chloe and coffee just fit. It was part of her personality, an aspect which did amuse him but not an aspect he thought was negative.

"No, I guess you haven't," Chloe conceded. "You do however question my caffeine consumption and make snide comments about how addicted I am to it."

A full-fledged smile spread across his face. "Chloe, your coffee consumption rivals Lorelai Gilmore's consumption, and she's a fictional character not at risk of developing an ulcer from drinking too much coffee."

"Ulcers are caused by bacteria or something like that, not by coffee."

"It could happen," Clark said. Sure coffee wasn't usually linked to ulcers, but drinking nearly ten cups a day couldn't be good for one's stomach.

Given how much coffee Chloe ingested, Clark was surprised she didn't suffer from more side-effects. How she slept was a mystery to him.

"I doubt it," Chloe said in reply. Her voice was light and carefree. Clark realized they had managed to engage in playful teasing without it once being awkward.

_This is nice_, he thought to himself. And it was nice. It was rather fun to exchange banter back and forth, talking about nothing important. It harkened back to their high school days, particularly their freshmen and senior years when they had been at ease with one another.

Chloe stood. She smoothed her shirt down before holding out a hand, the hand that wasn't holding her jacket. He took the hand, pushing his body off the couch as Chloe pulled upwards.

"Thanks," he said once he was standing.

"Like you didn't do most of the work."

He thought about grabbing a jacket but figured the long-sleeved white shirt he wore would be fine. It wasn't like he ever got cold anyways. The warm Miami weather made jackets somewhat useless, although people still wore them. Light jackets, of course, nothing like the parkas people back in Smallville wore during the winter months. Sometimes he missed the colder weather, missing the red and blue jackets he used to wear all the time.

Clark still had a blue and red jacket but both jackets were buried beneath his t-shirts in his dresser. When he did wear a jacket, he wore a sable-colored jacket he had picked up during a shopping trip with Oliver. The shopping trip had been Oliver's idea, as had the jacket, but Clark had to admit the light brown jacket attracted far less attention than the brightly-colored jackets he had preferred to wear all throughout high school.

Plus, the brown jacket wasn't a jacket Jack could make fun of. Jack had seen the red jacket once and Clark had heard about it for weeks afterwards.

He grabbed his keys from their spot on his desk. He followed Chloe out the door. As they walked down the dorm hallway, they discussed where to go for their coffee and their walk. Chloe wanted to stay on campus, so they decided to go to the Starbucks near the library before taking the shuttle over to the path that circled the lake.

Forty minutes later, they were causally walking around the lake, joining the numerous other students who had decided to pass the Sunday afternoon in a similar fashion.

At first they talked about random things. They talked about the restaurant Jack and Sara wanted the four of them to go to next Saturday. They talked about upcoming movies they wanted to see. Chloe gave him the details of her article and made him promise to contribute to the paper weekly.

They had been walking for twenty minutes before they lapsed into temporary silence. Clark sipped the simple coffee he had gotten, enjoying the feeling of the sun on his face.

"Chloe, can I ask you a personal question?" Clark asked, ending the quiet moment between them.

Chloe glanced sideways at him. "I'm your best friend, Clark. If you can't ask me a personal question, who could you ask?"

He took another sip of his coffee. "It's just that I've been wondering something," he began.

Chloe looked at him for a moment longer before breaking their gaze, turning her head towards the path in front of her. "About Lana and me and our fight," she said, correctly deducing what Clark had wanted to ask her about.

The fight between Chloe and Lana had been bugging him for the better part of the week. He knew friends had falling outs, but the friendship between Chloe and Lana had always been surprisingly strong. Chloe and Lana had managed to get past their feelings for him, and he remembered how much tension that had provoked.

"Yes."

"Ask away," Chloe said, still not looking at him.

There was a bench only a few steps away. The couple that had been occupying the bench were just beginning to walk away from the bench. Clark reached over and grabbed Chloe's arm, lightly leading her over to the bench. She went willingly.

"Clark, just ask," Chloe said as they settled down on to the bench. She sounded slightly exasperated and more than a little bit annoyed. She also sounded vaguely apprehensive.

He knew vaguely what Lana had said to Chloe. What he didn't know was what Chloe had said to Lana.

"What did you say to Lana?" he asked. He kept his voice soft.

"You have to remember she had just accused me of being a pathetic, lovesick girl. I was angry."

He listened without saying a word.

Chloe sighed. Her fingers clutched around her knees. "I told her she was constantly on the search for someone new because she always thinks people are about to leave her. I said the truth was that she's the one who always leaves. She's scared of being left behind so she does the leaving."

Clark didn't say anything, just nodded.

Chloe paused, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, offering Clark a good look at her face which had been partially blocked by her hair. She looked ashamed of herself.

"Lana could have had a father," Chloe said abruptly, the segue not making complete sense to Clark. He stayed quiet regardless. "He wouldn't have left her. Lana made him leave. Henry Small could have learned to share his affections, to divide his time between his wife and his daughter. His wife was being selfish, but instead of fighting, Lana just gave up. She didn't fight, just accepted that a person couldn't love her and love his wife at the same time. She didn't even give her father a chance to prove her wrong."

Chloe fell silent.

"And what did Lana say in response," Clark asked, prompting Chloe to continue.

"She accused me of judging her because my own mother had left. She said I was 'projecting' and unable to think about anyone but myself. And then she said I knew nothing about relationships because all I had ever known was how to be head-over-heels for a guy in love with another girl."

It was a divulge of information, a waterfall of harsh words exchanged during a bitter fight. The words said when people were angry and lashing out, words regretted once the heat of the moment was over. But by then it was too late, precious bonds between two people broken, perhaps beyond repair.

A part of Clark wondered if he had been right to ask Chloe to give him this information. And that part of him said it hadn't been right to ask Chloe to hand over something she hadn't wanted to give him the week before.

But he had wanted to know and now he knew.

Chloe looked at him, her eyes wide. "Can we go?" she said suddenly. She stood. "I don't want to talk about this anymore."

Clark stood, silently agreeing to let the topic drop. Earlier this week, he had thought about encouraging Chloe to talk to Lana again. Now he discarded that idea. If Chloe or Lana wanted to put their friendship back together one day, that would be their choice. If they chose not to, that would be their choice too. He'd support Chloe in whatever she chose to do about Lana. He had known Lana the longest, but Chloe had been the first of the two females to really befriend him.

Chloe was the one in Florida with him. She was his best friend. She was the person he'd stick by for those reasons and others. It wasn't like he had been in contact with Lana since he had moved to Florida anyways.

They started walking again.

"How about those Florida Panthers," Clark said as they rejoined the crowd on the path.

Chloe let out a short burst of laughter.

"What?"

Chloe just shook her head.

"No, seriously, what?" Clark demanded, not annoyed, just a bit confused.

Chloe nudged him in the arm. "Clark," she said. He waited for her to go on but she didn't.

"What?" he repeated.

"Nothing," Chloe said with another shake of her head.

"Chloe…"

"Clark," Chloe said, interrupting him. "I'm feeling a bit hungry. Are you hungry? You're always hungry, silly question. Let's go back and get something to eat/"

"I guess food could work."

"Good," Chloe said. She grabbed his hand and dragged him back in the direction they came. "Walk faster."

"When did you become a slave driver?"

Chloe turned her head towards him. "Haven't I always been a slave driver?"

Clark grinned at her. "Coffee addict and slave driver—yep, that is the Chloe Sullivan I've known since eighth grade."

"Okay funny guy, how about we discuss going to see a film on Tuesday evening."

"Random much?"

"Now you're stealing my lines," Chloe protested.

He shrugged and threw back a retort. Chloe returned the retort and they tossed banter back and forth as they retraced their steps. The tension that had built during the conversation with Lana had disappeared with the easy banter. Clark wasn't surprised. Any friendship was like that. There was always at least one topic that was uneasy. For him and Chloe, it was Lana, in any shape or form. Now that he knew a bit more, he wouldn't bring Lana up again, and he doubted Chloe would either, since she had gotten the answers she wanted last Sunday.

As they neared where they had started their walk, Clark realized Chloe had, somewhere along the line, laced their fingers together. At least he thought Chloe had done it. He paused momentarily and Chloe looked over his shoulder at him, giving him a bright smile. He returned the smile and took a step forward, putting them side-by-side again.

They continued walking.

* * *

TBC next week, hopefully on time for once. 


	5. Part V

Author's Note: There was a RL delay. Hopefully this chapter is good and that makes up for the long delay.

* * *

Part V 

* * *

The fifth week of classes had come and gone. It was now the weekend and that meant either studying or partying or both.

Clark wasn't the type to party. He couldn't get drunk and being sober while everyone else was drunk was just not a lot of fun. He had been dragged to a few parties by Jack and Sara last semester and that had only solidified his opinion that him and party just didn't mix. With Chloe around now and a weekly work schedule, it was easier to bag off partying.

Jack and Sara had invited him and Chloe to go partying with them tonight. It was Saturday, he was work-free, and so the four of them had made plans to catch dinner together. They had agreed to meet at a family restaurant not too far away from campus, Jack and Sara coming in one car and Clark coming with Chloe in her car.

Dinner had gone well. Sometimes Jack's sense of humor and Sara's "blonde" moments annoyed him to no end but tonight the couple had been entertaining and not the least bit annoying. Clark had enjoyed the meal, as the food was better than the on-campus fare and not too expensive. The atmosphere had been light and the conversation had flowed easily.

After they had split the bill four ways, Jack had said that they should go to a party being held at one of U of M's fraternities. Clark had exchanged a glance with Chloe before declining for the both of them. Jack had shrugged and then he and Sara had left, leaving Clark alone with Chloe.

Now he and Chloe were walking absently down the sidewalk, having decided to take a walk before returning to campus. It was dark but the city streetlights gave off bright illumination, preventing darkness from overcoming them. The temperature was mild, far milder than February temperatures back in Kansas. The retro-style buildings were different than the buildings back in Smallville too, newer and designed to be old-fashioned looking. The buildings lining Smallville's Main Street were just old and dull. The lit-up street they were walking along was pretty and scenic.

They were discussing Lois and her recent relationship woes with Oliver when Clark's attention was diverted from Chloe.

"Lois is just feeling a little…" Chloe was saying, but her words got swept away as a new sound reached Clark's ears.

It was the sound of someone running that dragged him away from the conversation. His ears easily caught the sound as he concentrated. He heard the thud-thud of someone running. He listened carefully. The sound could be innocuous, someone running or juggling in the early evening mild temperature. But the sound could also be coming from a person being chased.

Next to him, all but forgotten, Chloe said, "Is the spider-sense tingling?"

He was dimly aware of her speaking but the words don't penetrate, not yet. His concentration was one a new sound which had just joined the first sound. It was another thud-thud running sound. He blocked out the other sounds around him and listened intently.

Was it two runners or two people involved in a chase?

The pace of the first runner whose footsteps he caught increased. Thud-thud, repeated over and over again. This runner's footsteps were heavier than the second runner, making individualization possible.

"Help," the first runner screamed. "Somebody help!"

Clark longed to superspeed away. He resisted because Chloe was next to him. Even thought he had managed to tune out her words, he was still away of presence. Her presence registered, just barely, but it was enough to prevent him from zipping away. He couldn't risk exposing himself. He needed to find a way to distract her, quickly, just long enough for him to get away without her seeing.

There would be questions later, Clark knew, but he could field her questions. He just needed to make sure she didn't see anything, otherwise it'd be impossible to successfully field her questions when they came.

Clark was contemplating his options when Chloe took the option away from him.

"Go."

He paused in his stride, forcing her to stop as well. He looked at her face, lit up by a nearby streetlight. She didn't look made or even resigned. She looked expectant, almost as if this is an occurrence she expected would happen.

He didn't have time to consider what that meant.

Opening his mouth, he got ready to offer a quick explanation, a new lie. Chloe just shook her head.

"Go," she said again. "Go."

Clark lingered for a moment longer before he took off in a jog. The first runner was still screaming for help, only a few miles away now. He ducked into an alley a block from where he left Chloe and burst into superspeed, moving faster than the human eye could perceive. He passed a few people causally strolling down the sidewalk, talking amongst themselves, their worlds perfect and not punctuated by someone screaming.

There were days when he wished he didn't have to constantly have an ear-open for strange sounds, screams and other indicators of trouble. Running off suddenly was not a task he liked. It provoked questions he didn't want to answer, questions he could never answer. No one could know he was an alien. No one could know that he was the last child of a planet called Krypton. Oliver and the other guys believed he was just another meta-human, a human blessed with special abilities. He had no intention to tell them the truth, just like he had no intention to tell Chloe the truth.

He sometimes wanted to tell Chloe, to confess everything, but he couldn't, not now, not ever.

The last person he had told the truth to couldn't handle it. Pete had known the unabridged version and all the truth did was mess up Pete's life. Clark's relationship with Pete remained distant to this day. They lived in different states, he on the east coast and Pete on the west coast, attending school in Seattle. They didn't talk on the phone and they exchanged emails maybe once every two months.

It was a sad ending to a friendship that spanned over ten years. Clark had learned a lesson from the experience. That lesson was that his secret, the whole truth, was nothing but a burden. He can't in good conscience place that sort of burden upon his friends. The weight was too great, and he refused to be the one to place such a weight on a person's shoulders. He won't set his friends up to falter.

Some days it seemed like it would all be easier if he was just a normal guy. If he had no special abilities then he wouldn't have to hide who he was. He could be honest. He could possibly have a romantic relationship that wasn't doomed from the beginning.

But those thoughts always fade when he helped a person.

He found the two individuals and knocked the one pursuing the first runner out. The first runner didn't at first realize he wasn't being chased anymore. After a minute, the guy glanced over his shoulder and stopped, looking wide-eyed at Clark standing over the slumped body of the chaser. The look of the man's face reminded Clark of the face of a cartoon character, all wide eyes and mouth hanging open. Dressed in a blue velour tracksuit, the man looked particularly ridiculous, especially with the cartoon expression on his face.

"Got a cell phone?" Clark asked after a moment.

The guy nodded and pulled it out from the fanny pack around his waist. He took a few steps in the direction of Clark.

"Phone the cops," Clark instructed. "And avoid the business core at night."

The guy nodded again, eyes still wide. His breathing, so fast just a minute ago, had slowed down. The body's fight or flight response was shutting down, allowing all body functions to return to normal. Everything returned to normal, including the heart rate and the breathing rate. The body forgot so quickly what it was like to be in fear.

"Thank you. I mean, thank you doesn't cover it. What you did was…just thank you."

"You're welcome."

The guy flipped the cell phone open and pressed in the numbers for 911. By the time he was done dialing, Clark was gone, blurred away too fast for the eye to see.

After a save, Clark knew why it was important for him to help people. He should help people, he liked helping people. It was a sensation that was almost akin to a rush—that was the best way to describe what he felt. Saving people resulted first in this awesome rush and then there was this incredible feeling of satisfaction afterwards. It was endorphins exploding, impossible not to feel good, and in those moments the desire to be normal faded.

Eventually the longing to be normal came back, often when he had to lie. Nevertheless, he could always remember the feeling helping someone gave him. That feeling made it hard to decide whether he could truly be content just being a human.

Sometimes he wished he had been born human, born normal. He rarely wished he could be turned normal, made human. He didn't think he could be normal, not anymore, not after everything he had experienced in the last few months.

He did wish on occasion that he had been born normal, but he rarely wished he could be turned normal. He didn't think he could be normal, not anymore. Now that he had been helping people for months, he really couldn't imagine not having his gifts and being able to use them for the greater good, although the desire to be normal still kicked around.

Clark headed back to where he left Chloe. She wasn't there, not that he was very surprised. She had probably expected him to take longer. He had only been gone scant minutes in reality.

He dug his cell phone out of his jean pocket. He dialed her number and she answered on the first ring.

"Done?" she asked, right off the bat.

"Yeah, I am. Where are you?"

"The Coffee Bean. It's about a block from where we were."

"I'll be there in five," he said. It would take him maybe two minutes to walk to the place, but he planned on taking his time.

"Okay, I'll see you then."

He hung up and tossed the phone back into his pocket. He turned in a circle, collecting his thoughts. He took a deep breath and then started in the direction of the Coffee Bean.

He walked slowly over to the coffee shop Chloe had taken refuge in. He was dawdling a bit, putting off the inevitable. He felt like he was going to face the Spanish Inquisition. In fact, he felt like Chloe in Reporter Mode could possibly be worse than the Spanish Inquisition questioners.

Eventually he had to enter the coffee shop. He pulled open the door and stepped into the café. It was small with dark walls and dark-colored furnishings. It wasn't busy, maybe half a dozen patrons in total, and it was easy to pick Chloe out. Her blonde hair and apple green t-shirt made her stand out among the drab colors of the Coffee Bean.

She was sitting at a table with two chairs, two cups on the table. One of the cups was placed before the empty chair. Whip cream and chocolate sprinkles topped the large dark blue mug. Clark walked over to the table and sat down in the chair she had clearly saved for him.

"I got you a mocha latte," Chloe said. "It should still be warm. I only got it like two minutes ago."

"Thanks."

He took a sip of his hot drink and waited for the inquisition. It never came.

Instead Chloe said, "Let's see a movie."

"What?" he said, trying not to sound as surprised as he felt. This wasn't what he expected. This was far from the screenplay that unfolded in his mind in the time it took him to walk to this coffee shop.

"After we finish our drinks, we should see a movie. After all, it's Saturday and we should do something fun. And movies are fun and I feel like splurging. What do you say?"

The words had fallen from her in a deluge and her words had sounded almost forced, a desperate attempt to return the night to normalcy. He stared at her for a moment, taking it all, before he said, "Sure, a movie sounds like fun. It can even be my treat."

"Even better," Chloe said, and he was sure there was relief in her voice. She bent down and plopped the movie listings from the newspaper onto the table. Her eyes scanned the page. "Let's see what's playing…"

Chloe began listing off suggestions, adding comments about whether she wanted to see the film or not. She wasn't looking at him, and Clark realized she had prepared the movie idea when he was gone, thereby eliminating any awkward silences between them. He ran off, without giving her an explanation, and she was giving him an easy route out of having to explain his actions.

He took what Chloe was offering, responding to her verbal comments and thanking her with his eyes. He just hoped she could understand what he was trying to convey.

When she smiled softly at him, he knew she had gotten his message.

In the end, they went and saw a mindless comedy. Chloe kept a running commentary throughout the entire movie and she sounded like her usual self for the most part. He kept a bit on the quiet side, still unsure of the role he was playing. The screenplay he had expected had been tossed out by Chloe and so he was acting literally blind. He had to wing it and he wasn't the best at winging things.

Luckily, Chloe took up the slack, saying enough for the both of them. Then again, she was always the more talkative of the two of them. She could fill any silence and she usually did. Talking was what Chloe did best and it was what told him that she was nervous too, even if she was better at hiding this fact.

Chloe did talk a lot but they had gotten to the point in their friendship where every silence didn't have to be filled with words. They could be comfortable without talking. They never needed Chloe to carry this much conversation.

They needed it tonight. It was because they were winging it, because they were in uncharted territory. At least it was new to him.

There had been times when Chloe had made it clear she suspected something, mostly during the last year of high school. But it had never been like this. He had never had to superspeed away from her when there wasn't trouble she was a part of. He had never had to leave and then come back like this. There had been no save that she knew about but she knew there had been something.

She knew something and she wasn't demanding an explanation. And it wasn't her hinting she knew something. It was her actually knowing something and letting him escape from having to lie to her yet again.

A part of him wished she had demanded the truth. A part of him wished that she wouldn't let him off easy. He knew how heavy the burden his secret was and he knew it wasn't fair to heap that burden onto another person's shoulders. To share it with someone, to share it with Chloe, was tempting nevertheless. The freedom of being able to be completely himself beckoned to him.

He didn't know if he could tell her the truth. As tempting as it was, he didn't know if he could do this. And he didn't know if Chloe could handle being lied to again.

The way she had acted, letting him off the hook, had prevented them from getting into the conversation that held the potential to forever sever their friendship. Yet Clark suspected that this couldn't continue indefinitely and one day soon he'd have to make the decision whether or not to tell her the truth.

When that happened, he would need to know whether to lie or to tell the truth. Either option would dramatically alter his relationship with Chloe. But eventually he'd have to choose whether to let her in on his secrets.

Détente couldn't last forever. He didn't want for it to last forever either. He would be lying if he said resolution didn't appeal to him.

Those thoughts lingered with him as he watched the film, as Chloe drove them back to campus. They stayed with him after he dropped her off at her dorm, as he underdressed and climbed into bed in his empty dorm room, as he lay in his small bed and tried to sleep.

It was very early Sunday morning when he finally drifted off to sleep, no more resolved about what to do than when he had climbed into bed hours earlier.

* * *

Well, I hope you guys enjoyed it. We're over halfway done!

Comments are adored.


	6. Part VI

Author Note: Sorry for the delay. I meant to post this earlier, but a person left a review stating that there were problems with my sentence sentence and grammar, so I went through this an extra time after I got it back from my lovely editor. If there are any errors, please point them out to me, so that I can make sure this story is readable and enjoyable.

That said, I hope you guys have fun reading this chapter. We're coming to the end very shortly.

* * *

Part VI

* * *

Sunday morning found Clark in the library.

He was seated at a two-person table, although the seat across him was empty. He had spread his backpack and books across the table, essentially preventing a person from taking the seat. It was still early enough in the semester that the library wasn't packed on a Sunday late in the morning, and so no one had asked him to remove his stuff.

For the past hour, Clark had been attempting to work on a paper for his sociology class. It wasn't due for a few weeks, but he had needed to escape from his dorm room. The room had seemed smaller than usual, more oppressive. Doing homework in the library had seemed like a perfect solution, only he couldn't seem to focus.

The thing distracting him was the same thing that had kept him awake late last night.

Fed up with the lack of progress he had made so far, Clark shoved the books he had been using aside. He wasn't getting any work done and he suspected he wouldn't get anything done until he had decided upon a solution to his dilemma. His dilemma had two options: he could tell Chloe the truth or he could continue to lie to her.

He flipped to a clean sheet of notebook paper. He wrote _Chloe _in bold letters across the top of the page. Then he drew a line down the middle. On the left side, he wrote _Pros_ and on the right side, he wrote _Cons_.

He stared at the sheet before him for a long minute before he started writing down the pros and cons of telling Chloe his secret.

One major reason to tell Chloe the truth was that she already suspects something. He wasn't sure of the extent of her knowledge, but she clearly knew something. When he thought closely about it, she had been dropping subtle hints since senior year. On a number of occasions she had alluded to there being something 'special' about him. He had ignored the implied meanings behind her words, choosing to prefer denial over facing the truth.

He wasn't surprised she had figured out at least part of the truth. He had tried his best to hide his abilities, but he knew there were many times he had been sloppy. That sloppiness was usually because he was rushing to save someone's life but, still, he had been sloppy.

Plus, he had rescued Chloe more than once. Some of his saves had been painfully obvious, defying certain laws of physics. Eventually he had to count of her putting two and two together, coming up with the number four.

Another reason was that she could help him with the whole helping-people gig. Back in Smallville, she had used to help with research, although unintentionally usually. Without meteor rocks around to infect people, she hadn't had much reason to research stuff that could potentially help him. If she did know, he could include her in the whole gig. In all likelihood, she would be a willing participant.

He also had a sneaking suspicion that Chloe would make a fantastic addition to the saving-people club. While Victor was great at computers, Chloe was a hacking genius. Another person involved in their missions--to run things from headquarters—would make the missions he and the rest of the gang embarked on that much safer.

And, as well, the gang was currently all guys. The addition of a female could help balance out all the testosterone.

Mostly, though, telling Chloe would mean he would no longer have to lie to her. The last remaining barrier between them would be removed. He'd have some to talk to, someone his age. His parents were great, but they were much older and they had each other. He had no one. He'd love to have Chloe as his confidante.

Then there are the negatives to confessing the truth to Chloe.

The major downside Clark could see is that she might turn her back on him. He was an alien, after all. Not every girl wanted to be best friends with an alien. She might abandon him, go back to Metropolis. He didn't really foresee this happening. She had once told him aliens would probably be a step up from human beings.

Of course, she'd probably be disappointed when she found out he was a being of supposedly higher intelligence. He suspected she think he was a letdown.

He also had to ask himself if it was fair to burden Chloe with the truth. Even if she did want to know the truth, the unabridged version of the facts wasn't a light load to carry. Being his secret-keeper was no easy task, a load maybe even Hercules couldn't have shouldered.

There was also Chloe's journalistic side to consider. He could tell her and she might very well be willing to keep his secret, but in doing so, she'd be sacrificing some of her journalistic integrity. It would be the story of the century to write the expose about aliens on planet Earth. If she wrote the story, she'd be betraying him. If she didn't, she'd be betraying her journalistic side. By telling her the truth, he'd be asking her to choose between him and journalistic integrity. That wasn't a choice he wanted her to be forced to make. It wasn't fair of him to force her to make that choice.

When he got down to the barebones of the situation, the main con was that he could lose his best friend. He had already lost Pete. He wasn't sure he could risk losing Chloe.

But if he didn't tell her the truth, how long did he have before she walked away? She might have followed him to Miami, but that didn't mean she wanted to be kept in the dark forever. If he kept refusing to trust her with his secret, how long could he reasonably expect her to stay before she said goodbye and went on her merry way?

He dropped his pen to the table and propped his elbows up on the table. He leaned forward and let his hands pillow his head. He could feel a headache beginning to build, the result of stress. There was no easy answer to his dilemma, no obvious choice to make.

It, quite frankly, sucked, in Clark's opinion.

Closing his eyes, he let himself get lost in his thoughts. He lost himself until a person forced him to return to the present.

There wasn't much of a warning. Just a slight gust of air, almost too subtle to notice. Then, words uttered in a loud whisper close to his ear.

"Hey Boy Scout."

Clark lifted his head, arms falling down to the table with a soft thud. He twisted and tilted his head to the side a bit. Staring back at him was Bart. He was dressed in the customary red sweatshirt and red pants. It was the uniform Bart wore everywhere.

The amazing thing, in Clark's mind, was that Bart thought he was stylish in the red threads. Bart also loved to mock the clothing that Clark wore. Given that Bart often dressed like a cherry red tomato, Clark was sure Bart couldn't throw stones. Bart did so regardless however.

"Bart, could you not call me that," Clark asked, his voice full of annoyance. The nickname Boy Scout had never amused him, and under the current circumstances, he liked it even less. Bart had coined it and Clark hated it, so naturally Bart delighted in calling him Boy Scout.

Bart slid into the empty seat across from Clark. "No can do, amigo. You are so totally the Boy Scout."

Clark sighed and rubbed his eyes. He could still feel a headache brewing. He was an alien. He should be immune to headaches. But he wasn't not immune to stress, and so he could apparently get stress headaches. Bart's sudden appearance did nothing to reduce Clark's stress level. In fact, Bart's presence had alleviated the stress level.

"What are you doing here? And how did you find me?"

Bart held up his hands, his face scrunched up in a broad grin. "One question at a time, buddy." The hands fell while the smile stayed in place.

"Bart," Clark said, nearly growling. His patience was not what it normally was on this particular day.

Bart's grin grew even wider, confirming Clark's opinion that Bart had no self-preservation instinct. "Relax, Clark. I'm just here to see a friend. If I had realized I'd be met with such hostility, I would have stayed away," he said.

Bart's hands traced the edge of the table—Bart could rarely sit still, as Clark had noticed months ago. "And, to answer the other question, your roommate said you'd probably be here."

Clark nodded absently. He had told Jack he'd be at the library. He had mentioned it off-handily. He hadn't expected Jack to recall his mention. It was nice to know that Jack does pay attention. He just wished today hadn't been the day Jack had decided to demonstrate his ability to pay attention.

"So, Boy Scout, what has got your knickers in a knot?"

Clark shot Bart a dirty look. Bart just made his eyes go wide, a 'who-me?' expression upon his face. Clearly the kid had no self-preservation instinct.

"What are you working on?" Bart pressed. "Come on, tell me."

"Nothing important," Clark replied, trying to think of a way to cover up the sheet of paper he had been writing on. Two of his textbooks were nearby. He tried to shift them over the paper, but Bart was an expert at seeing through Clark's attempts at deflections.

In a split second, the notebook was gone from its spot in front of him.

Bart grinned widely as his eyes scanned the page the notebook was turned to. Clark thought about making a grab for the paper, but didn't bother after a moment's contemplation. Bart moved faster and was undoubtedly watching Clark from the corner of his eye. Bart knew all the tricks for misdirection.

Bart's days of committing petty criminal offenses might have been long over, but Clark knew Bart retained all the tricks he had learned.

"Chloe's the blonde chick, right?"

"You remember Chloe?" Clark asked in disbelief. Bart usually couldn't remember what day of the month it was, let alone a person he met once a year ago.

"Of course, she was hot."

Clark knew he shouldn't be surprised. Bart was more than a tad bit obsessed with 'the ladies', as Bart put it. Bart's attempts to find a pick-up line that works were always comical. The hilarity factor tended to be high too.

"So, Chloe doesn't know about you being all Mighty Mouse and you want to tell her," Bart said, summing up the facts in one concise sentence.

Clark didn't appreciate the Mighty Mouse comment, but he let it pass uncommented upon. Sometimes it was better to just let things go. Besides, there was a risk that anything he said would just further incite and amuse Bart.

"That's the gist of it," Clark said simply. "Any advice, speed miser?"

Bart's appearance was a surprise, but Clark figured maybe he could get something out of it. Bart was probably the last person he would have sought out for advice, but since Bart was here, Clark knew it couldn't hurt to get Bart's two cents. It wasn't like he had to listen in the end to whatever Bart said.

Bart was oddly solemn when he spoke next. "The first question you need to ask: do you trust her explicably?"

Clark didn't have to think about it, saying without hesitation, "With my life."

Bart nodded, a bit of a smile playing on his face. "Second question you need to ask: can she handle knowing you secret."

This question did make Clark pause. His experiences with telling people his secret hadn't been very positive.

Then again, it wasn't fair to judge Chloe by Pete's reaction. And she already knew a portion of his secret, as her not-so-subtle hints had made abundantly clear. Despite that knowing something was off about him, she had decided to attend the U. of M. She could have stayed in Metropolis, far away from him. She could have stayed away from the messy life he led.

Instead she had chosen to leave Kansas and come to Florida.

So, really, the answer to the second question was simple. With a confidence had hadn't possessed five minutes ago, he said, "Yeah, she could handle it."

"Then you should tell her."

The notebook was suddenly before him again. He glanced over at Bart, who was standing. "I'll stop by tomorrow, when you're more in the mood to hang. Or you can stop by headquarters. Ollie just bought us an Xbox 360. It rocks," Bart said.

Clark shook his head, laughing softly at the excitement in Bart's voice. Give Bart a new shiny toy and that was all the kid could think about.

Before he sped away, Bart dropped a hand to Clark's shoulder. "Good luck," he said, and then was gone.

Bart disappeared before Clark had the chance to thank Bart. He'd have to do it later, it seemed. Hopefully he'd be able to do it in private. He could just see Oliver and Victor and AC not letting him live it down that he had listened to advice from a teen nicknamed Impulse.

Now that Clark knew what he was going to do, he needed a strategy. He couldn't just go to Chloe's dorm room and blurt out the truth. He needed a plan. He needed to practice. He needed to have everything prefect before he opened his mouth to spill his metaphorical beans.

His need for a strategy meant his headache meant that the dull pounding in his head would likely get worse before it got worse. He was strangely okay with that, because at least there was a plan beginning to form. The plan he would use to bring Chloe in on the secret of the century.

Even though Bart had advised him to tell Chloe, Clark was still nervous. Telling Chloe required him to make a leap of faith. It required him to trust her completely, and he hadn't been ready to do that before. He was, and so he could now make that leap of faith.

It was something Chloe had once said to him. Eventually you did have to trust someone with what was in your heart, because otherwise you would end up alone.

Clark was ready to trust. He was ready to not be alone.

Decision firmly decided upon, Clark went to work on brainstorming how he would introduce Chloe into the wacky world that was Clark Kent, alien from another planet. As a plan begun to form, more detailed than before, his headache started to recede and his spirits steadily rose.

He was happy.

* * *

Until next time.

As always, comments are adored. Thanks for reading!

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	7. Part VII

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Special thanks to** XxTrueLovexX**, who reminded me to finish this story. I got sidetracked with finals and real life and my LJ account, where I post other stories under this penname.

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Part VII

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There was yellow scrunchie with polka dots on the dorm doorknob.

Clark saw the stupid hair piece and sighed. He had spent the entire afternoon in the library and he really just wanted to spend the evening in his dorm room. He had downloaded the last two episodes of _House_ and he just wanted to spend some time forgetting about his troubles with Chloe by watching his favorite show. He had yet to figure out a completely adequate plan for telling Chloe his secret. All he had wanted was some time spent worrying about nothing. That didn't seem like a demanding wish.

But his wish was going to be unfulfilled, because Jack and Sara were in the dorm room. And afterwards, the small room was going to reek of the musky smell of sex. Clark preferred to avoid the dorm room after a scrunchie period. He certainly didn't want to go in there with his headache. The pain had faded but certainly hadn't disappeared.

He leaned against the wall for a moment and then slid down the wall until he was sitting on the floor. It wasn't a dignified position, but Clark didn't care. He was at a lost where to go. There was really just one option that was viable and it was the one option Clark didn't really want to take. He was going to have to take it regardless though.

Clark sighed again and pushed himself up off the ground. He knew where he had to go. The place belonged to a blonde-haired female with a journalist streak.

He hadn't been avoiding Chloe per se but he hadn't hung out in her dorm room lately. It was too intimate to be alone with Chloe in her dorm. He was afraid that, in that sort of intimate setting, he might start rambling and the words about his alien heritage might just tumble from his mouth before he was ready. He didn't want to say anything before he had a solid plan in place. He wanted a plan, one that he couldn't screw up and one that would ease Chloe into his secret. He just hadn't come up with one that fulfilled both requirements yet.

But he really couldn't just sit outside his dorm room waiting for Jack and Sara to finish up. He had no desire to go back to the library. The sun was going down, so the great vast outdoors was out. Plus, if he was outside, he'd feel the need to patrol and with his headache, patrolling was something he had no interest in doing. He'd patrol tomorrow, he promised himself, but tonight was he was off.

There was Bart's invitation to play video games, but Clark was sure that if he showed up tonight, Bart would send him back to Miami. Bart could be annoying like that. Besides, by now Bart had probably told the entire gang about Chloe. He wasn't in the mood to be teased tonight. He'd postpone that to a later date and time.

Because he really had no other choice, he trudged down his hallway, down one flight of stairs, and down Chloe's hallway, until the familiar dry-erase board greeted him. He knocked and waited for Chloe to answer the door.

Like Clark expected, Chloe held the door open wide the second after she saw that it was him knocking on the door. She was offering him entrance and he took it, crossing the threshold. Chloe closed the door behind him once he was inside.

Chloe smiled at him as she moved past him and took a seat at her desk. Her laptop was open, Internet Explorer running. She said something, but he missed the words. He took a seat on Chloe's bed, the orange comforter brunching as he sat down heavily. His back was against the wall, but the wall didn't feel like it was lending him any support. He felt overwhelmed.

Chloe took the spot next to him. He hadn't even noticed her moving, but now she was next to him. A quick glance at the desk revealed that her laptop had been shut.

"Hey, what's up?" she asked, her voice tinged with concern. Her hand reached up, touching his cheek just briefly. A nanosecond of touch, meant to convey her concern without further overwhelming him. He appreciated the gesture.

"What's wrong?" she asked when he didn't say anything to her first query.

He sighed audibly. What was wrong was that he had this gigantic secret and he wanted to tell her, but not like this. He didn't just want to blurt out words, knowing that his words would get jumbled if he did it like that. He wanted to be able to set out the truth logically, in a sequence, one piece of information followed by a related piece of information until there were no secrets left.

But he was sick of lying. He was sick of telling lies and of Chloe believing those lies. He was sick of abusing her trust. He'd tell her a lie and Chloe would accept because she trusted him. Trust was the reason lies so obvious were accepted at face value in their relationship. He had lied on so many occasions to Chloe, and yet she continued to accept his lies at face-value. She accepted his lies even though she knew he was lying to her.

She had known for years now that he has been feeing her lies, but she still believed him when he would tell a lie. He was just so tired of telling ties. He was tired of Chloe accepting his lies. He was tired of their friendship being strained by his lies and what she knew or didn't know.

"Clark, whatever it is, you can tell me." She grabbed one of his hands and entwined their fingers. "Just tell me what's bothering you, please," she added, sounding desperate.

He was worrying her, he realized. His silence was deafening, filling the small space, and it really was no wonder that he was frightening her.

At that realization, Clark decided to just come clean. He could no longer stand the lies and the silence he had created by his indecisions and his lies. Making everything perfect was no longer important. Reassuring Chloe was what was important.

"I'm an alien."

Chloe looked at his, confusion spreading rapidly across her face. Her free hand was resting against the wall, almost clutching it. "You're an alien," she repeated. Her voice was dull.

"Yes."

Chloe shook her head. "You're saying you're an alien from outer space, like E.T."

Clark sat up a bit straighter. He had the beginnings of an explanation in his mind, and he just hoped the words would come out in logical order. "Yeah, I'm an alien, just like E.T. I'm a good alien, not like the aliens on _The X-Files_."

"Clark-"

"Just let me explain, please, before you say anything."

Chloe nodded and Clark squeezed her hand. She hadn't remained her hand from his and he took that as a good sign. He needed good signs to continue.

"I was born on a planet called Krypton during what I guess you could call a civil war. My biological parents wielded power of some sort. My biological father was a scientist of sorts. To save my life, they sent to Earth."

"The meteor shower—that was your spaceship crashing to Earth," Chloe said dazedly. Her eyes were large with shock and perhaps even with disbelief.

He shushed her, but Clark suspected she'd make comments no longer what he said.

"Yeah, the meteor shower coincided with my ship breaching the Earth's atmosphere."

"And the meteor rocks?" Chloe asked, interrupting once again. Clark gave up trying to explain without interruptions. He'd figured it was hopeless to expect a journalist like Chloe to sit by passively and listen to him tell her he was an alien from another planet.

If he had been in her shoes, he'd be interrupting too.

"The meteor rocks are radioactive pieces of Krypton. I fondly called them kryptonite." He saw her about to open her mouth and he cut her off, saying, "I don't know why the meteor rocks have affected humans the way they have."

"What about you? Kryptonite affects you, doesn't it?"

He nodded. "The green meteor rocks weaken me. The red meteor rocks release my inhibitions." He looked at her curiously. "How did you know-"

"I sort of saw your dad use a green meteor rock to fight you when your body was possessed by Dawn Stiles."

Of the things Clark expected Chloe to know, he hadn't expected her to know anything about the meteor rocks and their affect on him.

"What exactly do you know, Chloe? And how long have you known?"

Chloe shifted and moved a fraction of an inch closer, another good sign in Clark's books. "I guess in a way I always suspected something. The quick exits, the lame excuses, the miraculous recoveries." She smiled, bemused. "But I think when I saw you catch a car with your bare hands that sort of clinched it for me."

"You saw me catch a car?" He didn't remember ever saving Chloe from a flying car.

"Alicia."

"She showed you?" he said in disbelief. Alicia had promised him that she'd never reveal his secrets to anyone. Apparently she had betrayed him to Chloe.

"She wanted me to write an article. She thought if I exposed you as a freak, you and her would be together."

Clark's brows furrowed. "Why didn't you write the article?"

She shrugged carelessly, as if writing articles on meteor freaks wasn't something she had done on a weekly basis. "I couldn't do that, not to you."

He was glad she didn't write the article. An article exposing him as a boy with powers would have been the absolutely worst thing to happen. He wasn't that surprised she hadn't written the article. After her betrayal with Lionel Luthor and the incident with the truth serum, Clark knew Chloe wouldn't try to expose the secrets he kept.

What he didn't understand was why she hadn't told him what she knew. She had wanted answers for so long, had wanted to be trusted with his secret. He didn't understand why she just hadn't told him Alicia had revealed his secret.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"It wasn't my secret, Clark. I didn't have the right to demand to be let in on it," Chloe said emphatically. "I figured you'd tell me when you were ready."

The girl sitting next to him wasn't the girl she had been at sixteen. She wasn't the girl who had pursued the truth no matter what the cost. This was a girl who had matured; whose trust in him was astounding. If he had been in a similar position, Clark wasn't sure he could have kept quiet for as long as Chloe had.

"'Thank you," he said softly.

Chloe's smile was bright. "It's what friends do, Clark." She shifted closer. "Now tell me everything you know about Krypton."

And so he did.

Chloe was snuggled up against Clark's side. She was only wearing a tank top, the dorm room warm. His hand had found purchase on her arm and was running up and down the soft skin. Baby fine, light-blonde hairs felt downy-soft beneath his slightly-rougher textured hands.

"So, it's a whole Robin Hood thing, right? A merry band of men, clad all in tights, fighting the good fight, right?"

Chloe was tapping her fingers against his chest. He was sure she didn't know Morse code and so figured she was just tracing random patterns on his chest. It was an odd sensation, good but unusual. It was relaxing, as well, and he felt a bit drowsy.

"I don't wear tights," he said. He didn't. Most of them didn't. "But otherwise, yeah, that sums us up."

He had told her about Oliver, Bart, A.C., and Victor. He had told her a bit about what they do and a bit about the projects of Luthercorp that they were trying to stop.

He' had told her a number of things over the past two days. He had revealed his true origins, leaving nothing unsaid. He had told her how Jonathan and Martha found him and how they made a deal with Lionel to adopt him legally. He had told her about his strength, about his speed, about his invulnerability. He had told her about his x-ray vision and about his heat vision. She had laughed herself silly about the heat vision. So far he had confessed so many things to her in the past two days.

There are things they hadn't discussed. He hadn't told her how lonely he has always been. He hadn't told her about Pete knowing and being unable to handle knowing that secret—he planned to tell her soon. He hadn't told her about the summer in Metropolis and what it was caused by. He hadn't told her about the summer Jor-El kept him captive.

He hadn't told her anything about Kal-El. He will, in time, but he was content with what he had told her. For now he was content to lie beside him, her heartbeat steady and comforting to his sensitive ears.

But there was something he wanted to discuss. It had nothing to do with aliens. It did have to do with the last remaining source of awkwardness between them.

"Chloe…" he began after they had lapsed into silence. He wasn't sure how to broach this subject, but he was going to do his best. After all, all he could do was try. The past few days had taught him that he was pretty good at trying.

He hoped it would all work out for the best. He hoped that he wouldn't overwhelm her.

She shifted, moving closer. Her eyes drifted open. "Yes Clark?"

"I need some advice."

Her head fell to his shoulder with a soft thud. "Is it about a girl?"

Apparently Chloe was psychic. He wasn't sure if that made things easier or harder.

"Well-"

She interrupted him and said, "Wait, of course it's about a girl. It's always about a girl. It's always about two girls and a guy and a coffee shop."

He laughed lightly. Her hair was in his face. "I think you're messing up your shows."

Chloe groaned but raised her head. She shifted a bit farther away and propped herself up on an elbow. She was gazing down at him now. "Okay, the psychiatrist is in. Tell Chloe your problems."

"You're hilarious," he said instead of his problem. Chloe just shrugged. Her other hand, the other that wasn't propping her up, rose and does a little circular dance, telling him to get on with it.

"Okay, so there is a guy," he began to say, earning him another groan. He shushed her before continuing. "Anyways, there's a guy and there's a girl-"

"Tell me that this tale doesn't also possess a coffee shop and a girl with raven-colored hair."

He shook his head. "Nope, there isn't a coffee shop, or a girl with dark hair. There is a dorm room, though, and a girl with blonde hair. And there's a guy, who has feelings but isn't sure they're reciprocated. He's pretty sure they are, but isn't absolutely sure. What should he do?"

"Oh," Chloe said softly. Her eyes are large and luminous in the dim light of the room. A smile curved her lips. "Sometimes I think the best course of action is to just jump, you know. Take the plunge and see where it goes."

Clark smiled back and pulled her closer. He raised his head, Chloe just a bit above him now, and pressed his lips to her mouth.

It was a light kiss. He moved back an inch and said, "A dive like that?"

Chloe's smile was bright. "I think the guy might be able to do a better dive than that," she teased.

He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. She lowered herself, pressing up right against him. Clark kissed her, this kiss wetter, deeper. Chloe responded in kind, and soon they were lost in kisses, time escaping their notice.

Eventually they had to pull apart. Oxygen is essential. Breathing and kissing unfortunately don't always go hand in hand, especially if the person wasn't all that experienced. Clark would be the first to admit that experience in romantic relationships was something he lacked. He was hoping he'd soon gain that necessary experienced.

"Like that?" Clark asked, referring to their earlier conversation about jumping and diving off cliffs.

Chloe ran her fingers over his lips. "Clark, stop talking."

And so he stopped talking. There would be time for talking later, for there were things that still needed to be said. This was really only the beginning of the journey. Clark was looking forward to embarking on that journey with Chloe by his side. He didn't feel so lonely anymore and that was a feeling he'd admit to adoring. Sometimes people worked well together and Chloe was someone he worked well with. Sometimes things worked out well.

Sometimes even superheroes found a little happiness.

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The End

Completion! Thank you to all those who followed me along this journey. Those who reviewed and those put this story on alert and those who put this story on their favorite's list and those who simply just read—you guys rock!


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